The Psychology of your 20s - 28. Are love languages real?

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

We discuss love languages, what are they, are they real and where did the idea come from? We also talk about recent research done by Hinge on the most common love languages and the modified quiz which now includes two additional love languages.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Thanks for joining in again and for listening to this episode. Today we're going to talk about love languages. Maybe you've heard of them. Maybe you haven't. Maybe that's why you decided to listen to this episode.

But regardless of your pre-existing knowledge of the idea, there is plenty to learn today. If there is noise in the background, I'm so sorry. I'm currently recording this under a blanket in my house because it's raining. Because Lenina does not sleep. She just doesn't. So love languages. That's what we're talking about this week. Essentially, there are ways that people express and receive.

love. That's the basic premises. And the founder of this concept, essentially he believes, his name's Chapman, and he believes that he's created a tool, a test, or I guess kind of like a dimensional method, that can reveal exactly how you want to be loved and the ways in which you best show love. And since its creation back in like the late 80s, early 90s, it's expanded quite significantly. Obviously, it's now an online quiz that I'm sure I would say most of you have done. And it's no longer just primarily used for couples. It's used for friendships, the relationships you have with your family, and even get this in the workplace. Although I'm not quite sure how they incorporate physical touch into that. That sounds like.

They're walking a very thin line between healthy work relationships and a lawsuit. But anyhow, you can kind of get the gist. It has become its own kind of phenomenon and a pretty core part of our psychobabble. I remember when I was at uni, this was like a huge thing that people talked about, oh, you know, like, what's your love language? I remember doing the quiz. I've probably done it quite a few times and it's changed every time, but I remember doing it with a group of friends like at one of my uni dining tables, like way back in 2017. And even today, people often, you know, trot out their self-identified love languages as kind of a shorthand to indicate how they behave in relationships in the same kind of casual and convenient where you might talk about your star sign or

your Myers-Briggs type or your Hogwarts house. I see it on hinge profiles all the time, like all the time, you know, I think it's even a prompt on hinge. And funnily enough, like the dating app actually did some psychological research on love languages that we're going to talk about later. And, you know, it's in every context. I've talked about it with, I think, every single partner that I've ever had, even if I wasn't the one who brought it up, it's just become such a quintessential part of beginning a relationship or continuing a relationship is this discussion around what's your love language, how do you want me to show love? Now, acknowledging that it has become such a huge part of relationship jargon these days, is it even real? Our love language is real. Is there any science

to it at all? Or is it just this weird murky pseudoscience slash like buzzfeed? quiz. I think there is a huge trend these days with a lot of these, like, personality quizzes and judgments that attempt to tell you things about yourself. And there's really no kind of indicator of whether they're accurate, but we put a lot of merit in them at times. So how much method is there to the madness of the five love language quiz? Can you truly believe it? If you go into your relationship, having done the quiz, knowing what you know about yourself, is it actually going to make you happier. So we're going to unpack all of that and more in this episode. So stay tuned. So if you're one of the few people who hasn't heard of love languages, here's a simple rundown.

So the five love languages are these different ways of expressing and receiving love. They are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. The premise is this. Not everyone, communicates love in the same way and likewise people have different ways that they prefer to receive love and the concept of love languages it was developed by this man his name was gary chapman and he wrote a book about it his book was the five love languages the secret to love that loss and in this book which has become quite famous he describes these five unique styles of communicating love categories that he's kind of distilled from his experience as a marriage counsellor.

Bit of background on Gary Chapman. He's actually incredibly well known in social psychology. He runs an institute in the United States, and they do heaps of pretty groundbreaking work or just interesting work on relationships and communication styles. And he kind of a side note, but he did this amazing experiment, I think 10 years ago, where he was able to predict out of 100 couples, which, ones would last and which ones would with like a 95% accuracy, all based on how they communicate, their communication styles, which is kind of different to the five love languages, but it was incorporated

at times. So what he says is that we probably all relate to these love languages. Everyone loves receiving gifts. Everyone loves words of affirmation at different times. But there's definitely one that will speak to you the most. And discovering you and your partner's primary love language and speaking that language regularly may help create a better understanding of each other's needs and kind of support each other's growth in your relationship, whatever the parameters of that may be. So here's a bit of a deeper overview of what each of them is, acknowledging before we dive in that not one single love language is better than another, nor are we kind of just limited to one way of expressing love to others. You can feel an attachment to all of these. If you're listening to them or

hearing about them for the first time and you're like, well, I don't really think one of them represents me. That's kind of the whole point. Everyone likes each of these, probably a little bit. It's just about which one kind of stands out. So first, we have words of affirmation. So people with words of affirmation as a love language, they value verbal acknowledgement of affection. You know, they like when you frequently tell them, I love you. They're like compliments, words of appreciation and verbal encouragement. And in the modern age, These people often probably really enjoy frequent digital communication, like texting and social media engagement and written and spoken, you know, efforts of affection matter the most to these people,

above other things. You would rather receive a heartfelt message or a compliment from someone you love than maybe a gift or a hug. So the second one is quality time. So people whose love language is quality time, they feel the most adored when their partner actively wants to spend time with them and it's kind of always down to like hang out or do things. They particularly love when their partner or the person they're with is actively listening, making eye contact and their full presence is kind of in that moment.

They like date nights. They like doing things together. This love language, it's all about giving your undivided attention to that kind of special person without the distraction of your phone or another. kind of stimuli or something else in the background, no interference. And these people, they have a strong desire to actively spend time with their significant other, have those meaningful conversations and, you know, share in hobbies and activities. Next up, acts of service. Kind of, like all of them, the title, you can kind of gather a lot from that. But if your love

language is acts of service, you really value when your partner goes out of their way to make your life easier. It's things like, I don't know, bringing you like Panadol when you're sick, making you coffee in the morning, picking up your dry cleaning, making the bed for you when you've had a busy day at work, doing the laundry, simple acts that would maybe take time out of your day and they decide to kind of take it on for you. So this love language is for people who believe that, I guess, actions speak louder than words. Unlike those who prefer to hear about how much they're cared for as with words of affirmation, people who fit into the acts of service category, they like to be shown that they're appreciated. Doing the small or bigger chores to make their lives easier or

more comfortable is, you know, pretty highly cherished by these people. Okay, gifts. Perhaps the most controversial. I want to say, don't mistake this love language for materialism. The receiver of the gifts, it's not that you spent money. It's that there's thoughtfulness and effort behind the gift. And it's pretty straightforward. You feel loved when people give you visual symbols of love, as Chapman calls it. It's not about the monetary value, like I said. It's not about receiving diamonds or a car, but it's the symbolic thought behind the gift. And people with this style recognize and value the gift giving process, the careful reflection, you know, deliberately choosing an object that represents the relationship and kind of the emotional benefits from receiving the present. So people

whose love language is receiving gifts, they enjoy being gifted something that is both physical but also meaningful. And for me, gift giving is the love language I like to show. I don't so much like receiving gifts, but for me, like if I love someone, it's kind of, it's really meaningful to give them something that shows that in like a physical form. So finally, the fifth love language is physical touch. So people with physical touch as their love language, they feel loved when they receive physical signs of affection like kissing, holding hands, cuddling on the couch and of course, sex. Physical intimacy and touch can be incredibly affirming and they really serve as quite a powerful, emotional, soulful connector for people with this love language. And there's this theory,

give it as much thought as you want, as much weight as you want, but there's a theory that the roots of physical touch go back to childhood. Some people only felt a deep connection and love, by their parents when they were held, kissed and touched. And in adulthood, that might manifest in physical touch being their primary love language. People who communicate their appreciation through this language, when they consent to it, feel appreciated when you hold them, when you cuddle them, when you love them through warmth and comfort and physical touch. So these are all pretty typical forms of expressing love.

I think we're all fairly familiar with them, and I'm sure we've all experienced them, I'm hoping. There aren't really any surprises here, though I'm sure you can maybe see perhaps some love languages that may be missing, but one of them that I talked about with someone once was like cooking for someone. It's not so much like the act of service, and it's not gift giving, it's something in between. And we're going to get further into this later for sure, because that's a big argument against the use of the love language, queer or distinction.

It's that it doesn't really capture everyone. And love is a lot more nuanced than kind of a five, point categorical scale. But before we kind of dig into the controversy, I want to discuss the quiz that is most typically used to discover your love language. So the creator, Chapman, we've mentioned about, talked about him. He developed this kind of test based on his interactions with thousands, and I mean thousands of couples in one-on-one therapy sessions and interviews. There's a TV series about this if you want to know more, essentially. But through this experience with his clients, I'm just going to note here the majority of them were heterosexual and monogamous,

but through his experiences talking with them, he determined that not only are there five very distinct ways of showing and receiving love, but we can clinically discern which one suits a person best by asking them to rate some fairly simple statements and just to say which they would prefer. So for example, one of the questions or statements might begin with this. So it's more meaningful when A, I receive a loving note from my loved one, or B, my partner and I hug. So with the first option, that obviously represents words of affirmation and the second being physical touch. This goes on for a while. I don't know how many there are, I'm guessing probably over 20. And at the end, you get a percentage for each of the five languages that tells you

which you would like to receive and the percentages add up to 100, meaning there's room for all of them in your final result. It's very rare that you'll get 100% just for one. Actually, it's impossible. It's not rare. It's impossible. You're definitely going to perhaps have two or three that really are quite significant. And sometimes they're pretty close.

So, for example, for me, my lowest love languages are quality time and words of affirmation. and they're both around 12%. If you haven't done it before, take five minutes now, pause the podcast, I promise I'm not saying anything that interesting, and complete the quiz. Just Google five love languages. It's free. It's completely free. And answer intuitively.

Don't think too much into it. That's how you'll get the most authentic answer. But hold off reading too much into it right away. Wait till the end of the episode, then consider how much weight you want to give this. What's the merit you'd like to give this tool? A big question I kind of always wondered, maybe you're wondering it as well, is what is the most common love language? The founder of the quiz, he analyzed the results of, I think, over 10,000 people who took the quiz in 2010. And he found that words of affirmation was the most popular

language, but by really thin margin. And in 2018, the dating app hinge, yes, that's right, Hinge, analyzed the app and found the most covered love language was quality time by far. So there's been the shift in the last eight years between 2010 and 2018. Chapman found it was words of affirmation and then when Hinge did it, quality time, I think it was like 200% higher than the second option, which was actually words of affirmation, but by a long shot. And when I read this, I kind of found it equally parts funny and a little bit sad because these are my lowest by far, but also it's not something you can really change, and it's still

possible to access those areas of expressing love, even if they are the most prominent. Or not the most prominent. Sorry, even if they're not the most prominent. Yeah, there we go. So diving further into this data collected by Hinge, because I find this really fascinating, like a dating app doing psychological research, but they also assessed like the differences in love languages between men and women using the app. So whilst quality time was the most common love language overall, there was some discrepancies between men and women and how they looked at the other love languages. So for men, have a guess, which is the second most important. It was physical touch. But for women, it was words of affirmation, and that was pretty comfortably ahead, the third option.

another thing they found which I'm really not quite sure what to read into this like I read it and I tried to like find an explanation as to why this might be the case but it's just probably a coincidence but women who answered that acts of service was their love language of choice received seven times more likes than other women when you when you like held everything else constant really random and it wasn't like they were putting this in their bio it's like they used the app for a couple of months and then they were asked to take the love language quiz. And that's like, I'm just going to repeat that again. Women who answered acts of service for their love language of choice seven times more likes

than other women. But I also personally think it depends a lot on, you know, gender, culture, customs, values. So certain love languages, which are pretty prevalent in the West, might be less common in non-Western cultures. So for example, in South Asian cultures, directly praising someone is very uncomfortable and might not be well received. Instead, I read this article, and it said that praising that person to a third party is more highly valuable when they hear about what you said about them through the great fine or through another person. Also, public displays of affection between romantic partners.

It might also be less accepted, whereas in Western cultures, that kind of level of PDA, it's much more accepted. I'm not really sure why I'm not going to read too much into it, but it's just some findings and some kind of observations. and people have had. But love language, they aren't just reserved for your romantic relationships. They can also be really important in other close loving relationships we have with our friends and our family. It can be really difficult and frustrating when we don't feel understood, regardless of the context. And that's the gap that love languages help bridge by understanding how we feel seen and appreciated. And when we're able to accurately communicate that, we reduce the friction that comes when we don't feel understood by those who are closest to us.

However, as popular as the concept is, many, many people have since pointed out some problems with Chapman's idea of just five love languages. Some people can maybe use this quiz, this theory, as a sort of personality test, despite the fact that the founder, his whole point is that we're supposed to adapt ourselves to our partner's love language, not demand that they use ours. And when partners use the concept of love languages only as a way to talk about how they themselves instinctively express affection or what makes them personally feel loved, Chapman noted the idea can actually actively cause trouble in relationships. There's also this idea of, you know, people are very different. There's some people who are survivors of combat or

sexual abuse trauma or people with autism spectrum disorders, for example. They're not going to respond well to partners who just insist on physical touch as that's probably not what they want to do. And that's like kind of what Chapman was saying this whole time. It's not about demanding your love language. It's about adapting to the other persons. So do our love languages have to align for a relationship to be successful or long term? Well, that's the question that's been asked quite a lot as well. And recent research revealed that couple of

who share the same love languages or their love languages are aligned and they're on the same wavelength, it doesn't exactly mean that they're going to have a more successful and happy relationship. It's not like the big secret here. It's not the antidote. It's just a component. Couples who shared the same love language, they just, they weren't happier than couples who are differing styles. And that kind of suggests that mastering fluency over the love language system and adapting it based on what your partner needs in the moment is a lot more valuable than. solely relying on a dominant love language type, which is what people who share the same love language would be doing. I think that kind of promotes codependency and it prevents partners from

developing autonomy and authenticity and, you know, a relationship is a place for transformation and growth. And when we limit each other with a specific love language, we don't really allow room for change. And then if you also think about this, there might be times when you're just really busy and if your partner's love language and your love language is acts of service and they're also busy the whole thing kind of falls apart because neither of you can show love in that typical way the broad concepts when we lean on its practical simplicity can also feel think a little bit too simplistic since it is not completely inclusive of sexuality and culture trauma and intergenerational differences in many nuanced multicultural communities there needs to be an understanding and

understanding that human relationships are a pretty complicated reflection of a lot of things, of childhood wounds, of attachment, of things that have happened in the past. And I think it's only when you really are able to overcome that and kind of heal those wounds of past relationships and family and develop a healthy attachment style that love languages can become something that's prominent in how you treat others. And it might even be the case that your love language really significantly changes. Here's the other issue that we've mentioned. Here's the other issue that we've mentioned, but I want to expand on it a bit further. It's this narrow idea that there are only five love languages when there has been an abundance of further research that's shown

there are so many more. And these will all vary slightly, like we said, with different cultures and demographics. So one researcher in particular, she set out to modify the love languages that were initially created or listed by Chapman. This is what she had to say. So she saw from the data that as gender norms in particular have changed, the expectations we have for our romantic relationships have become very different from the late 80s. For heterosexual couples in particular, the division of labour across gender lines is no longer kind of neatly circumscribed, leading to kind of an expansion of what we expect from our partners. Let's dive into this further. So as an example, in Chapman's book, he consistently frames kind of a man doing housework

as helping his wife out. He kind of suggests that that is an act of service. Doing an equal part of housework is an active service. Not to mention there is multiple anecdotes in his book from husbands who have, you know, succeeded in, they bring around a paycheck, they do the dishes and they're baffled when their partners want them to do more. While these attitudes, you know, of this gendered division of labor and financial means aren't totally behind us, I think the era when, you know, this is the error, I guess, when most women earn as much or sometimes more than their male partners. And most couples expect to bring more of themselves to a partnership. And also, there is no longer this traditional like idea that women do the housework men bring home the money

and when men do the housework it's an act of service it's just expected now if a man was like to me oh i did the dishes and you know that's how i showed my love for you i'd be like no that's just we both ate the same meal like of course you're going to do the fucking dishes if i cook and it's just splitting labor evenly it's not love so because of this woman's kind of observations she's created a new set of love languages. There's not five, there's seven this time. Here's what they are. So the first is activity.

So these people feel special and valued when their partner actually takes an interest in their hobbies and their activities. Even more so, those who resonate most with the activity love language, they feel especially valued when their partner makes an effort to enjoy these hobbies and interest with them. You know, like I always found it so meaningful with friends, because as we've said, it's not just romantic partners. But when my friends join me in doing something that I really love, like when they come on the podcast or when we like go to an art class together,

we go for a hike, it's just so meaningful to me. The second is appreciation. So people who feel the appreciation love language applies to most to them will feel really loved and adored when their partner showers them in compliments, in praises and appreciation, when they're told I love you. This is pretty similar. to words of affirmation. These people, they like being told explicitly that they're admired and loved, and this makes them feel really understood. Here's the next one. We're two down, five to go. Emotional.

Emotional love language will resonate with many of those who feel as though they can connect with their partner and be supported even in the toughest of times. Partners who are present during the worst and best moments will feel really valued by someone with an emotional love language. Financial. This is the first one that's quite different from Chapman's original love languages. And it's kind of been adapted because of, you know, what we saw now is that shift in earnings, that shift in labour. So a person who feels loved when they have a partner who is generous with their money and sees the value in giving is someone with a financial love language. This doesn't have to come from gifts.

It might be that you pay for dinner. It might be that you pay more of the bills. The way these people feel valued and appreciated will mostly be through gifts or resources. And just a reminder, they don't have to be expensive or lavish. They just have to be well-meaning. Here's another new one, intellectual. And I really like this love language. I think that a lot of us can relate to it.

And it was quite surprising to me that Chapman didn't include in his initial list. So people with the intellectual love language, they like to connect through the mind. Oh my God, what's that sexuality type where you look for in love with someone's ideas in their mind? I can't remember. Message me if you remember, or I'll Google it.

We can find out together. But people with intellectual love language, they feel loved when their partner values their intelligence, when your partner wants to have engaging conversations with you, when they respect your opinion and they take part in kind of thoughtful discussions of important issues. It's the person who feels loved when their partner is willing to have a debate and disagree with them for the sake of, you know, an intellectual conversation. Physical, we've already talked about this, it's physical touch, it's feeling adored and validated through physical affection.

It's the same as Chapman's one. And then the final and the seventh love language in this adapted kind of model is, is practical. People with the practical love language feel the most loved when their partners chip in with their everyday duties and responsibilities. They feel cared for when their loved ones do the chores and offer to help. We can see that there are, you know, a lot of these are kind of similar to Chapman's original theory, but it's that addition of these extra love languages, intellectual and financial in particular, that I think encompasses more people who may not previously have operated or fit into the traditional framework. By using a more updated diverse sample,

this woman, she was able to create a new system or tool that I think is more applicable to modern day settings and modern day relationships. And since the original five love languages were created, relationships have evolved from, you know, what used to be a more, a mostly practical partnership based on efficient division of labor and raising children, to a more spiritual and personal connection that we have higher expectations for. We don't just want to come home to someone who will bring home a paycheck or help us with chores. We want this person to help us kind of achieve our best selves. And there are also more accepted types of relationships now, like open relationships or polyamory, in which aspects like financial and intellectual love

might be more central. You know, yeah, I don't really know how to explain this, but it kind of made sense to me, especially that financial and those financial and intellectual components, you might be able to get words of affirmation and physical touch from someone else, but the person waiting for you at home might be the person you really relate to intellectually and who you have kind of a financial promise to, and that is love. That is a form of love. I think in general it's also important to note that you shouldn't just use love languages as kind of a universal solve to like remedy issues. It's clear that we do need more of a skill set than those, you know, than just five ways, five tools, maybe even seven to face the problems that may exist

below the surface of our relationship. You know, maybe going to therapy, working on yourself, fixing your own problems, that's also a form of love that doesn't really fit into any of the ones that we've talked about. When we use a quiz on the internet to tell us something definitive about ourselves, it's not always going to be 100% accurate. I don't need to tell you that. And I don't think it should be taken entirely literally as well. And that's kind of Chapman's main's point. In doing so, you kind of detract from his true intentions. And his intention was to create a tool, an informational tool to help partners communicate and understand each other better rather than kind of narrow the ways in which they show that they care.

That's kind of the end of what we have today. A shorter episode, but short and sweet. And it was really interesting looking into this. I found it, you know, quite insightful, especially now, you know, that I'm not dating anyone or anything like that. I was doing the love language quiz and I realized that, like, since the last time I did it, which was when I was last in a relationship, it's changed so much.

Like I realize I think my love languages had kind of adapted to the other person. And now that I'm able to refocus on myself, I kind of realized that some of the things that they were giving to me perhaps weren't actually what I wanted. So it's interesting to do that now versus when I'm in a relationship. And if you haven't done it, you should do it. If you're not dating someone, you should still do it. It's like I said, great for relating to your family, great for relating to your friends as well. Like I know for me personally, I love giving my friend's gifts, but I feel weird when they give them to me. And I would much rather, you know, quality time or like a frequent message or something like that than an act of service or something.

And it's good to kind of understand that about your friendships and your family. Those relationships are also important. It's not just your romantic partner that should be the most prominent. But thank you again for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm going to do my basic spiel now. You know, saying all the things I usually say, blah, blah, blah. If you'd like to review this podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify, I would greatly appreciate it.

No, in all seriousness, it really does help the podcast grow. And it's just me doing this. It takes a while to write these episodes. It only takes like four hours to make one. And it's all kind of worth it when I get a nice review or something like that. So if you are getting something out of this, I would really appreciate it. and make sure to follow. I always say us, but it is just me, on Instagram,

on Facebook, although I don't really use it, but if you feel the need, and subscribe. There we go. There's my three lists of demands. Thank you. And tune in next week. We're going to talk about situationships. Boy, oh boy, I was in a situation ship for seven months this year and last year,

and let me tell you that, fucked me up. So I have so much to talk about. I've been researching my little butt off to get some good content into the years of all thou who are listening. So tune in for that and have a lovely, lovely week. Thank you. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean

that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the signs of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side, a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%.

That's TWA% on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.

We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.